Why a Sacrifice if Calvinism is True?

[Clete]

It'd be a complete waste of time arguing Calvinism, Open Theism, or any other denomination at this point. There is nothing to be gained by such fleshly posturing.

Especially if you're destined to lose every debate you engage!

Besides, you will do precisely as much fleshly posturing as God has predestined you to do, no more and no less!

 

[Clete]

The reason intelligent and faithful members of TOL hardly ever enter into debate with you any more, is because you do not really reason, but instead resort to the insults shown above.

You do not reason with disagreement, as you claim you want, but ALWAYS resort quickly to calling those who make attempt to communicate with you, "stupid" and "liars."

I for one, do not bother with you anymore because of your emotional-driven abuses and insults against my faith in God's Holy Word.

No, Nang, it's just the exact opposite. Just precisely the exact opposite! I do not call someone stupid unless the actually say something stupid and I certainly do not call someone a liar until they've said something that they had to know was false when they said it, like your post here, for example. It seems you are incapable of posting anything that isn't an outright intentional lie.

Also, it isn't abuses of your faith, it is you I am abusing and quite intentionally so! You deserve NOTHING but ridicule and shame. Your every breath is an affront to the God of Justice. Every blink of your eye is an insult to the God of Love. Your entire existence is blasphemy! You worship a god that does not exist and that you will not see on Judgment Day when you stand before the real God who BECAME a man and died and you will give an account for why you believed Him capable of ordaining child molestation, predestining abortion, and "forcing the devil, and the whole train of the ungodly to do Him service".

It's disgusting! It makes my skin crawl to even type that blasphemy out! You are disgusting, Nang! You're the vilest individual I know! And that's not hyperbole! I literally cannot think of a single person I know who is more aggressively evil than you are. Not even B57 beats you out - although he probably comes in at a close second - because he never ever engages anyone in a debate at all and so nearly everyone here ignores him entirely. You however are the devil who's put on the covering of light. You sound like a normal Christian person who seems to love the bible and God but its a trick! You don't know the real God from a hole in the ground. Your allegiance isn't with God or His word, it's with your doctrine. You believe what you've been taught to believe and nothing else. In short your a fool who's bought a blasphemous lie and now spend your spare time propagating that lie to others. How will you ever escape the fires of Hell?

I have little time left on this earth, and it would be a waste to spend time bantering with you . . .

And yet here you are doing exactly that.

You wouldn't even be here at all if not for me! I am literally the reason who know of this website's existence! You followed me here because I demolishing your entire theological construct in a debate with your husband on another site where it was you Calvinists that got all emotional and angry at me for literally no reason whatsoever. I was as rigidly rational as anyone could be in that debate and you fools still accused me of being hostile even though I had done nothing at all but ask questions that none of you could answer or even had any idea of how to begin to answer. And yet here you are whining and belly aching about me calling out liars and pointing out stupidity when I see it. You fools are nothing but hypocrites.

 

[Trump Gurl]

The reason intelligent and faithful members of TOL hardly ever enter into debate with you any more, is because you do not really reason, but instead resort to the insults shown above.

You do not reason with disagreement, as you claim you want, but ALWAYS resort quickly to calling those who make attempt to communicate with you, "stupid" and "liars."

You are correct. He did that to me in the politics section even though I was 100% correct.

 

[Trump Gurl]

Calvinism says that God would rather go through all the trouble of creating those whom He has elected to first live a life of sin on Earth before they could be saved and be with Him. He could have just created them to be with Him from the beginning as He did the angels. If you deny that He has the ability to do this, then you deny that He has all power. If He were to do this rather than predestine them to sin, He would not have to send HIs son to die for them. So according to Calvinism, God would prefer to watch His son die a miserable death for an elect group that He predestined to live on Earth and sin rather than just create the elect to be with Him from the get go. Why would He go through having to watch His son be tortured and murdered when in His Sovereignty, He could just have just skipped all this devastation?

1 Timothy 2:3,4
God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.​

There it is. God wants all people to be saved. God calls out to all, and He hopes they accept Jesus.

That is all the proof one needs to know that Calvinism is a false heresy, a tradition of men. It is not Biblical.

 

[ttruscott]

God hath pleased to Create His vessels of wrath fitted for destruction !

Prepared, fitted, for destruction does NOT mean CREATED FOR destruction!

Romans 9:22 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory…

This says HE bore (the sin of) HIS eternal enemies with great patience but there is no hint here of how they became objects of HIS wrath. "Prepared for destruction" does not say, nor necessarily mean, "created for destruction," but can easily mean that after they chose to become HIS eternal enemies by their exercise of free will, HE prepared them for their damnation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible
"Fitted / prepared - κατηρτισμένα katērtismena. This word properly means to "restore; to place in order; to render complete; to supply a defect; to fit to, or adapt to, or prepare for;" see Matthew 4:21, "Were mending their nets." Galatians 6:1, "restore such an one, etc."

In this place it is a participle, and means those who are suited for or "adapted to" destruction; those whose characters are such as to deserve destruction, or as to make destruction proper..." not those created for destruction.

WHY bearing with great patience? V23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy… says HIS patience is to show HIS glory to HIS sinful elect, the objects of his mercy. Ie, there is something about HIS patience, HIS allowing the damned to live on earth with HIS elect that shows the elect HIS great mercy.

But this begs the question, How does HIS bearing them (ie postponement of the judgment) with great patience prove HIS great glory to us, HIS sinful elect?

Matt 13:28 ...“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest.

In "pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them" tells us there is some quality of the wheat that makes them susceptible to the judgement themselves if the damned are judged too soon. Obviously, that would refer to their sinfulness but by the time of the harvest the wheat are matured in holiness and it is safe for the judgement to proceed and the tares to be burnt.

That is HIS glory; that He waits for the sanctification of every single one of HIS elect who have chosen to be evil in HIS sight by bearing their sin and the sin of the non-elect and the postponement of the judgement with great (long-suffering) patience,

until HIS promise of election to heaven is perfectly (fully) fulfilled so that not one of HIS sinful elect are lost with the damnation of HIS eternal enemies.

That is what Romans 9:22-23 means to me... I find the use of scripture to impugne GOD's goodness, righteousness and loving justice by contending HE creates evil people to damn them for HIS pleasure and glory to be the worst blasphemy I have ever entertained myself before I had my eyes opened to HIS goodness.

 

[ttruscott]

Just one disagreement (and I'm pretty sure one doesn't have to be Calvinist to disagree on this): Yes to everything but Romans 8:28, among other scriptures, seems like He can use evil for His glory. I'm not sure if it is a disagreement or need for clarity. In Him -Lon

HE used the evil of the serpent to open Adam and Eve's eyes to their sinfulness which they were rejecting (as sinners do) as untrue. Their subsequent repentance and being brought to Christ was indeed to HIS glory. And Romans 9:17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." says much the same.

But these things do not prove HE needed evil to fulfill HIS purpose of the heavenly marriage. What HE needed was the free will agreement of HIS creation to accept HIS wedding proposal because without our free will acceptance of HIS purpose neither true love nor a real marriage can happen. But a free will allows rebellion and after Satan rebelled the evil he created had to be destroyed but when some of those elected to be HIS bride by their free will faith in HIM rebelled against damnation, the judgement had to be postponed.

 

[ttruscott]

1 Timothy 2:3,4
God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

There it is. God wants all people to be saved. God calls out to all, and He hopes they accept Jesus.

This interpretation proves universal salvation which is NOT a biblical doctrine... You have to do better than this.

 

[Trump Gurl]

This interpretation proves universal salvation which is NOT a biblical doctrine... You have to do better than this.

No I don't. Calvinism is a farce, a heresy, a doctrine of demons that makes God the author of evil. It is an invention of men that was invented 1,500 years after Jesus established his church.

 

[Lon]

​

I understand what you are saying and I agree. That however, isn't what I mean; rather, that which God did in creating is "creation". When a man says that God created man with the ability to choose, and then he says that God could have prevented man, who was created with the ability to choose, from having the ability to choose, the man is making a contradictory statement about God's creation. God could not have prevented the man from having the ability to choose, while that same man is having the ability to choose.​

Calvinism states that Adam had free choice, "Hence the unskilful rashly infer, that man did not sin by free choice." ​

here

Here I'm not sure where I stand between Calvin and other theologians. I believe man (Adam) had no freewill, but a will designed to follow God. You are arguing (I think) that God created man with a will: a choice, either to follow God's direction or not. In that, however, it'd be necessary that God would have created a proclivity that leads to evil, purposefully and I'm not that kind of Calvinist nor Arminian, nor Open Theist.

Calvinism states that God could have prevented Adam from sinning, " For, in the first place, it must be conceded, that God was not in ignorance of the event which was about to occur; and then, that he could have prevented it, had he seen fit to do so." ​

here

Calvinism asserts that Adam had the ability to choose, then proceedes to say that God willed the fall of man:​

"So far as the fall of Adam was the subversion of equity, and of well-constituted order, so far as it was contumacy against the Divine Law-giver, and the transgression of righteousness, certainly it was against the will of God; yet none of these things render it impossible that, for a certain cause, although to us unknown, he might will the fall of man. It offends the ears of some, when it is said God willed this fall; but what else, I pray, is the permission of Him, who has the power of preventing, and in whose hand the whole matter is placed, but his will?"​

here

This is why I'm a bit hesitant to tie in agreement. For me, sans the Serpent = "no Fall, no temptation." Many ask me after "Where did the serpent's Fall/tempting come from?" I've no idea simply because scripture itself never seems to discuss it. It becomes an issue where I can attempt logic and reasoning, or I can wait on what I know, then what I believe based on the information I've been given and have. The answer may yet be in scripture but I haven't had that 'ah ha' moment yet.

Calvinism by doing so, affirms that Adam had the ability to choose to sin, and, that Adam had the ability to choose to not sin, and, that God could have prevented Adam from exercising that ability to sin; thereby, Calvinism has built a syllogism on a false premise. That's why I said a man cannot find Calvanism by reading the Bible. God could not have prevented Adam from sinning while Adam had the ability to choose to sin; unless of course, God can draw a square circle and you can find it to be so in the Bible.​

It was/is not God's will that Adam sinned/sin.

I'm not sure, when we are left without the filled in information, that what we draw or conclude isn't based upon bible study. It'd simply mean we put that part together wrong. Even the Pharisees, Jesus said, were wrong, but He said that Salvation (and knowledge) was of the Jews to the Samaritan woman. It means to me: "Good teaching, wrong actions."

That's why I asked:

​

Remember that by "creation" I'm not meaning the product, but rather the process and purpose of creating.

Not yet; first things first.





Thanks for the discussion.​

Appreciate it too. You are clearly asking meaningful questions rather than making declarations and to me, this can only be the meaningful part of the thread, where rubber meets the road and we discuss what is biblical and what is not BY using the Bible. The rest of my discussions have been an appeal to do no more or less and so I greatly appreciate it. There is nothing else worth my, or (I think) your time. In Him and ty -Lon

 

[Lon]

HE used the evil of the serpent to open Adam and Eve's eyes to their sinfulness which they were rejecting (as sinners do) as untrue. Their subsequent repentance and being brought to Christ was indeed to HIS glory. And Romans 9:17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." says much the same.

But these things do not prove HE needed evil to fulfill HIS purpose of the heavenly marriage. What HE needed was the free will agreement of HIS creation to accept HIS wedding proposal because without our free will acceptance of HIS purpose neither true love nor a real marriage can happen. But a free will allows rebellion and after Satan rebelled the evil he created had to be destroyed but when some of those elected to be HIS bride by their free will faith in HIM rebelled against damnation, the judgement had to be postponed.

Some agreement on the first part, but I don't believe God wanted freewill. To me, freewill = sinwill. Man was created 'good' and to glorify his/her Maker. I also agree it took the serpent for the Fall to be possible.

Where I disagree, is that God needed or wanted 'freewill.' I wholly disagree that freewill is necessary for true love. In effect, you are saying Adam and Eve never loved God UNTIL they Fell and came back. How is that possible? How could it possibly be true that a fallen creation can possibly love better than one who is made and designed to love, by a loving Creator? Would Adam and Even EVER have needed marriage counselling? Would Adam and Eve have ever needed to 'make vows and promises' to one another? Would Adam love his wife BETTER after the Fall??? Would either have needed 1 Corinthians 13??? I simply must/have to disagree. At this point, it cannot ring true or make any kind of logical sense.

 

[ttruscott]

No I don't. Calvinism is a farce, a heresy, a doctrine of demons that makes God the author of evil. It is an invention of men that was invented 1,500 years after Jesus established his church.

I'm sorry - I thought you accepted the Catholic version of our fall... Please forgive me for my mistake.

 

[Clete]

You are correct. He did that to me in the politics section even though I was 100% correct.

You are a liar!

You fools forget that the threads are all still here for everyone to read!

I told you not to say stupid things because you said something stupid. I didn't say you were stupid until you insisted that what you had said was not only not stupid but that I was the one who was stupid.

Now you're here to tell everyone that I'm the one who calls people stupid like the perfect littel hypocrite that you are.

If you baffoons don't like what I say then stop reading my posts! Oherwise engage the actualy debate and make some sort of rational argument and stop whining like third grade cry babies!

 

[Lon]

1 Timothy 2:3,4
God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.​

There it is. God wants all people to be saved. God calls out to all, and He hopes they accept Jesus.

That is all the proof one needs to know that Calvinism is a false heresy, a tradition of men. It is not Biblical.

The Catholic Church wrestled long with this one, over 9 centuries. Eventually, they ousted Jansenists (https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/jansenism), but these yet remain and are represented, not by group, but by Thomism (Calvinist-lite), as well as those who follow and adhere to Augustine's grasp of scriptures. It'd behoove you to take a bit of time and study this out. Many Calvinists today would be seen somewhere inbetween Jansenist and Thomist following Augustine's understanding of scriptures. The RC was also concerned and still is, over Pelagianism (the antithesis of Jansenist theology) and also listed it as heresy as well as most forms of semi-pelagian. Thus, a Catholic has to be much more aware that they are neither Jansenist nor Pelagian when debating or making a Calvinist-judgement. -Lon

 

[Clete]

Some agreement on the first part, but I don't believe God wanted freewill. To me, freewill = sinwill. Man was created 'good' and to glorify his/her Maker. I also agree it took the serpent for the Fall to be possible.

Where I disagree, is that God needed or wanted 'freewill.' I wholly disagree that freewill is necessary for true love. In effect, you are saying Adam and Eve never loved God UNTIL they Fell and came back. How is that possible? How could it possibly be true that a fallen creation can possibly love better than one who is made and designed to love, by a loving Creator? Would Adam and Even EVER have needed marriage counselling? Would Adam and Eve have ever needed to 'make vows and promises' to one another? Would Adam love his wife BETTER after the Fall??? Would either have needed 1 Corinthians 13??? I simply must/have to disagree. At this point, it cannot ring true or make any kind of logical sense.

So if Adam and Eve didn't have free will until they ate the forbidden fruit, was the decision to eat it and the subsequent actual eating of it not done freely?

If so, was the forbidden fruit's effect retro-active to moments just before it was actually eaten?

If not, then was the act of eating not a sin?


I'm sorry but this is just simply asinine. There is no way you actually believe this nonsense! I mean, it is literally nonsensical gibberish. Any child knows that you cannot be forced to love someone! Love is a choice that must be made freely - by definition! If Adam and Eve didn't have free will before the fall then it is not possible that they loved God, each other or even themselves! Without free will there is no capacity to choose and without the ability to choose their can be no love because love is a choice.

That is seriously a line of reasoning that most any five year old child can understand and yet you have it flipped completely on its head and think that you're the wise one with the education and learned ability to discuss and debate complex doctrinal issues. It's no wonder you can't be bothered to make any real arguments to support your doctrine. When you do, they're about as robust as wet toilet paper.


Calvinism is a mental disorder.

 

[WonderfulLordJesus]

Calvinism is a mental disorder.

It's clear you're an optimist.

Matthew 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

But you know? We should have some modicum of charity. Tares got to eat, too.

 

[Lon]

It's clear you're an optimist.

Matthew 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

But you know? We should have some modicum of charity. Tares got to eat, too.

Yet neither of you will engage scriptures :Z Why do you two want to be the show? Are scriptures and God the show? Why do you two want to get in His way in a discussion like this? :idunno: It is just assertion, platforming, empty.

Matthew 16:24 What are we 'supposed' to be doing with freewill? That's right! Dying to it! Why? If it is a 'gift from God,' why would there be a demand to negate it, no, more: To deny it even exists in you? :think:

Forget Calvin: Simply deal with scriptures. Philippians 2:3,4

 

[Clete]

Yet neither of you will engage scriptures :Z Why do you two want to be the show? Are scriptures and God the show? Why do you two want to get in His way in a discussion like this? :idunno: It is just assertion, platforming, empty.

Matthew 16:24 What are we 'supposed' to be doing with freewill? That's right! Dying to it! Why? If it is a 'gift from God,' why would there be a demand to negate it, no, more: To deny it even exists in you? :think:

Forget Calvin: Simply deal with scriptures. Philippians 2:3,4

We have ignored no scripture! What are you even talking about?

Matthew 16:24 is telling us to take up the cross and follow Jesus (a command that does not apply to today's believer by the way but that's a different topic) but you say it saying that we are SUPPOSED to be dying to free will, which the verse says precisely nothing about (same goes for the Philippians 2 passage as well, by the way.).

But, that's fine! Let's just say it is all about that!

Is that a choice we are SUPPOSED to make?

How can you even allow such a blatantly obvious contradiction to escape your mind long enough to end up at an actual written out sentence? I feel like I'm literally talking to an actual idiot?

Your doctrine teaches that whether we take up the cross of Christ or whether we give any consideration at all to the interests of others isn't at all a decision we make and isn't a matter of our will but of God's very own "sovereign" (i.e. arbitrary) choice that He made for no reason whatsoever long before He created the first atom of the universe.
`

“We cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just as it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 22, Paragraph 11)​

My bible, on the other hand, tells me explicitly that God has given me a choice. He has placed before me and every human being life or death and He pleads with each of us to CHOOSE life!
`

Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;​

And forget about these isolated verses that are quoted out of their immediate context! I've pointed out several times with exactly zero response from you or any other Calvinist, that Calvinism cannot survive even a single reading of whole chapters of the bible, not the least of which is Isaiah 5, which is all about how God failed in His efforts to get good fruit from the nation of Israel. No matter what He did or how many chances He gave them, they refused to produce anything but wild grapes when what He wanted from them was good grapes.

If that passage means anything similar to what it plainly states, Calvinism and all of its distinctive doctrines are all at once flatly falsified.

Clete

 

[WonderfulLordJesus]

Yet neither of you will engage scriptures

Yawn...

1 Kings 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

Deuteronomy 11:26-29 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

John 12:32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

John 3:14-16 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

John 5:39-40 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

John 6:28-29 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Luke 7:50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

Acts 10:34-35 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.

Acts 17:30-31 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

1 Timothy 2:1-4 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all man, specially of those that believe.

Hebrews 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

 

[WonderfulLordJesus]

We have ignored no scripture! What are you even talking about?

My theory is that any scripture we would post or refer to is viewed on their screen like something from a pyramid wall, though have also postulated there's an adult reading issue. We must neither completely discount that there's some exponential number of times you need to post the same scripture, before they simply move on to exchanging amens and pious speak amongst themselves, that proves one is a good robot, of course. Maybe it's like the big lie, amen it enough, and it becomes true? A method to their madness, not simply madness? Looks can be deceiving...

 

[Lon]

Yawn...

There went the Wonderful Lord Jesus. You just cannot stay out of the way. What it means? Just an argument with no one you intend to glorify but yourself. Good job, dude.

1 Kings 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

Which is the way every cult proffers scripture. They pick'n'choose what they want, rather than studying and learning exegetical hermenuetics.

Deuteronomy 11:26-29 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

John 12:32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

John 3:14-16 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

John 5:39-40 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

1 John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

John 6:28-29 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Luke 7:50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

Acts 10:34-35 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.

Acts 17:30-31 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

1 Timothy 2:1-4 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all man, specially of those that believe.

Hebrews 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

All cherry-picked and having nothing but a warning between us. If you KNEW the scriptures this would be one thing, but this again is simply assertion. A false sense of security developed by what little scriptures you've read concerning this matter. I gave Romans 9 that does indeed deal directly with this OP. Your's? Not a lot. You simply like proclaiming and pick verses that you deem on your side. Nope. The same God is holding you accountable to these very verses to be a better steward, and a well-read steward of His scriptures, not an abuser of them.

At least you can engage actual scriptures. You know this guy will be on your whipping post next for as much as he disagrees over scripture with you. You did the 'temporary' nice with me at one time, too. He is not Open Theist nor MAD. After that? At least you understand the difference between ▲concordance cut/paste▲ and presenting scriptures that pertain to the subject matter and aren't just the result of a concordance search. That isn't Bible study.